$1 Instant Wire Transfers 24/7 | Hacker News Reader

$1 Instant Wire Transfers 24/7

tryfortress.com

31 pointszachrosen2348 comments

Running a trading company, I send and receive a lot of wires. When wiring a few times a year, the $30-$75/wire fee is annoying but doable. Since we send dozens a month, we rack up $1k+/mo just in fees.

Tried switching banks and sending ACH’s / Zelles whenever possible. Nothing let us move large amounts quickly and cheaply.

Why on earth does it cost so much and take so long to move my money? There’s got to be a better way, right?

Turns out, there’s not. So we built [Fortress](www.tryfortress.com) - it’s a platform that lets you send instant wires for $1, 24/7/365. Meaning, your monthly wire fee bill is decreased by 97%.

You simply connect your bank account, select a sender, and confirm your transfer. That’s it—funds are instantly available in your vendor’s account.

If you have any specific recommendations, just comment below. Would love to hear what you guys think!

Thanks!

Amazing idea - everything that disrupts slow and expensive bank models is very welcome.

I am just looking for similar service for Japanese market - a lot of small payouts/transfer - would love to use yours if you do play there

Can you explain how it works?

Let's say I'm in Germany and want to send money to US, doing it instantly is not possible with current Swift

But I could see how Fortress would have accounts in both Germany and US and then have a ledger that keeps track of it, money coming in in Germany, send money out in US, something like that?

Underlying tech then blockchain? Is it visible?

Why would they use blockchain for an internal DB?

Polygon and Ankr are backers, both blockchain companies. Dont know the other. That's why the question.

Also, why not have a public db for what you can, does it all have to be internal?

I don't understand quite how slow the American banking system is.

In the UK we have had immediate money transfers between institutions for a long time now. Why hasn't the US ACH system provided a near real-time transfer service, and the rules put in place to adopt it?

There is Zelles, but from what I understand, not everyone has adopted it plus it's a 3rd party so it would reduce visibility of dirty money transfers for the Fed.

Because.. ..money?

They can get away with being slow, and with overcharging for a transfer, so why not? The system they use can probably do an instant transfer at close-to-zero cost, but their "cartel" position means that they have no incentive to improve the current system. And if a "threat" comes from an exterior actor, they can a) use their influence to regulate it out, or b) lower their fees/accelerate the transfer process while "showing" how reactive they are..

Same day ACH appears to be a thing though.

https://www.nacha.org/rules/same-day-ach-moving-payments-fas...

So doing it but through another 3rd party doesn't make much sense. When the same system could be immediate or the destination takes a day or two, it's all a bit mad.

Does the US not have the same levels of competition that you see elsewhere? Surely a financial institution that can offer immediate money movement, or even overnight, would drive people to use that bank.

We have startup banks, like Starling, Monzo, Revolut who come up with some really neat ideas to differentiate.

I have no idea what the process is, but i helped a friend convert USD through Wise and send to another country and it was instant from their Chase account to the foreign account, even though they selected “pay by ACH”.

And i also noticed BOA will show ACH transfers in 24 hours when it used to be 2-3 days minimum.

Clearly theyve improved the process.

This is indeed mind boggling from a European perspective. Visa/Mastercard and banks just taking 1.5% of everyone's money because fast and free bank transfers for reasonable amounts don't exist.

People in the US pay all their bills with physical checks and debit cards, which is even more absurd considering that the US banks and credit card companies, last time I checked, still don't require proper 2-factor authentication for online payments or require PIN for in-person payments. Any time I make payments online in Europe, I have to use 2-factor auth and an e-PIN; it adds a whopping 5 seconds to the payment process.

Only large transfers in my country have a fee. I bought a flat a few years ago and sending a 6-figure sum (USD equivalent) to the escrow account only cost me $15 in transfer fees and it arrived a few hours later, though a person from the bank did call to confirm as a security precaution.

> Visa/Mastercard and banks just taking 1.5% of everyone's money

It should be noted that in the EU, interchange fees are limited, by law[1] to 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards.

It was an interesting consequence of Brexit that (certain) interchange fees shot right up to 1.5% in the UK. [2]

[1]: https://cms.law/en/bgr/publication/eu-cap-on-interchange-fee...

[2]: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-payments-watchdog-review...

Most banks I've run into have adopted Zelle. The problem with Zelle are that the UX is shit, and there are strict limits on how much you can transfer, which severely hampers its usefulness.

Is this for domestic USD or international transfers? For domestic, FedNow is going live this year and will support instant settlement transfers up to $100k for a few cents per transfer. International transfers might be compelling depending on currency exchange rates.

https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow

Both. FedNow is promising! Excited to give it a try when it goes live. If we can't build + distribute a product better than the federal reserve, we've got bigger problems :)

Looks awesome and I've already shown it to a few folks.

I'd avoid the "military grade" encryption marketing part though. For a lot of people, "military grade" means lowest bidder.

I don't think most people think that, but I would say that the target market for this service would tend to suspect such an ambiguous term. I'd just specify the actual encryption algorithm (AES-256 I assume, which is frequently what is meant by "military grade")

there is no military grade. there is NSA Suite A and Suite B, and one of them doesn't even have any published specification

Military grade is bullshit to me.

If I were ever writing a recommendation I would go with "industry standard" or "industry best practise" both almost equally meaningless. But still more valid, specially in financial system. As with standards you can't be blamed for doing it wrong.

Thanks! Fixed!

Is it possible to learn how it actually works?

Banks charge for wiring, so if you are still using bank how do you get around that? I assume that it's not actually doing a wire transfer.

Built on blockchain rails. Works like a 1-click bundle of debit sender account --> buy stablecoin --> send stablecoin --> (optionally) convert to fiat and disburse to receiver bank.

Well this is the first time I've ever been impressed by an application of crypto, notwithstanding some major concerns.

Thing is though that this is not a wire transfer, and lot of places where wire transfers are used are specifically used because of the infrastructure and guarantees around it. Would be interesting to a shift in adoption though

Do you guys just eat cost of minor fluctuations in stablecoin prices?

Thanks! Fortress can also slot into legacy infrastructure. Finality guarantee is also actually stronger with a stablecoin payment (cryptographically irreversible) vs a wire (99.9% irreversible, absent a bank mistake or court order).

Fully backed stablecoins are redeemable from their issuer 1:1, regardless of what they're trading at on secondary markets

But Binance just stopped all USD withdrwals. Circle is the only other issuer and requires you being licensed in every state as an MSB, plus compliance. And the fact that there is nothing to it tecnologically speaking. The whole moat is in having regulatory approval.

I don't believe they stopped USDC withdrawals, just actual USD

I meant to do a wire in the US you need to get USD out.

Which stablecoin are you using and any particular reasons for choosing it?

USDC. Audited + backed by cash and US treasuries

if my recipient is okay with receiving crypto and I was doing a high volume of transfers, why wouldn't I just make a wallet buy some stablecoin and send it to them directly and not pay you n*$1

Definitely could if you're more technical (not our customer segment). Also want to note that receiver can either keep funds in Fortress or just route to their usual bank account.

How can you do $1 per transfer if the off-ramps and crypto exchanges charge a percentage to withdraw to fiat? Unless you're using Circle which then requires you to be licensed in every state (unless their KYC failed)

Something not adding up here. Money movement (if you touch fiat on the way in or out) is highly regulated, and you would put Western Union and MoneyGram out of business if it wasn't. Moneygram already uses USDC, but it's not that simple.

Is there a reason it wouldn't work with any other imaginary asset?

I guess I just don't really under stand why you can't just can't cut out the crypto part in the middle

You could use a bank that doesn't charge like Ally or a credit union.

What the f? It costs 75 bucks to do a wire transfer in the US?

I pay 4 pounds per SWIFT transfer, and I thought THAT was a ripoff...

I've once paid 40€ for a wire transfer from Germany to the UK because I was stupid enough to pay in pounds instead of Euros. The goods I paid for were worth 40€. So this is also a problem outside of the US. It very much depends on your bank, too.

This is awesome.

I’m nearing completion of a Crypto invoicing and payment platform that works without dependence on any infrastructure — but can’t receive payments in Fiat, only Crypto.

This technology would provide a hugely valuable option; to wire Fiat currency, and pay for the service/software in Crypto.

Because delivery of the Crypto payment to the designated address is the licensing mechanism…

Sounds really cool!

There are a lot of small software developers who would like to get paid, but either can’t charge potential clients (too much regulatory overhead), or are completely un-banked (reside in remote areas w/little infrastructure or are residents of the same country as the boogie-man du jour)

This let’s them get paid, even if every government in the word shakes in rage at the idea of someone licensing their software.

But for normal companies buying software through their finance department, having a Fiat-to-crypto account where they can get a USD$ invoice approved and wire the funds would be wonderful!

I’ve fought for 6+ months just to get one invoice paid (USA client, Canadian vendor). This would have made my pain so much less. For African or Eastern European clients, I basically can’t offer them my software as they effectively can’t pay me.

If you can KYC the client company, and then they could pay via your service and deposit to a crypto account associated with the KYC-ed vendor — this will be a huge win!

Are you licensed in every state in the US? if not, it's against regulations to operate a money movement business without licensing by every state where you operate.

Secondly you need AML and other compliance.

No, AML is very bad and privacy invasive. It's no one's business but our own who we send money to.

Monero and other models like it are the future.

Kind of unfortunate name - as soon as I saw "Fortress" I thought you were the buzzards trying to snap up 'Gox claims, and almost skipped this.

This is a great example of one of the many many real-world uses of cryptocurrency that has (likely) been made illegal by regulators.

Europe has had instant, free bank transfers for years without any crypto in the underlying tech. The same regulators taking away crypto are perpetuating the horror show that is US retail banking in other ways.

They require identity, and a trust relationship with a bank, and only work inside the one defined economic zone.

Cryptocurrency is better than those systems by almost all metrics.

"ANY BANK IN THE WORLD"... is quite a TALL CLAIM!!! I have my doubts!!!

How do you connect your bank? Are you using a 3rd party like Plaid or Trustly?

which basically is not an integration, literally here's my bank login info I trust you to do whatever you want with it....

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